


Red Matter, chapters 6 and 7 (final)

by Geelady



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geelady/pseuds/Geelady





	Red Matter, chapters 6 and 7 (final)

Red Matter – Part 6

Author: G. Waldo  
Rating: Adult. Angst. Violence. Rape. A slightly non-canon time-line as this story is set post the death of Tim Carter, the supposed ”Red John”, but no specific time thereafter. Lisbon and the team also believe that Jane might be correct; that Tim Carter was probably not Red John.  
Characters: Jane/Lisbon friendship, Jane/Cho. Violent rape and torture his chapter. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED  
Summary: Possession is ninth-tenths of the law.  
Disclaimer: Not mine though I wish he was.  
Words: This will be a longish fic’. Those among you familiar with me know that means 20,000 words-plus. I have tried to stick to canon (other than the eventual Jane/Cho) as much as possible, but since I’ve not seen a good 1/3 of the episodes (I discovered the Mentalist only this last year or so and now it tops my list) thus far, there will probably be mistakes. If so, my bad!

May you be in heaven an hour before the Devil knows you’re gone.  
Old Irish saying.

C—B—I

The next time Jane felt Red John’s presence was when he awoke to find his mouth gagged and his head restrained as before, pulled hard over the back of the chair until his neck hurt and he could hardly breathe. The chair he was in now was the plush adjustable type and Red John had it reclined to almost a lying position, so Jane’s fingertips tickled the floor behind him.

Red John was all business and spoke to him as he had that night of their first and only close encounter. That conversation Jane remembered as being more or less one-sided, as though Jane were an interesting distraction, or a “work” in progress and not a prisoner.

This little rendezvous had turned out quite differently.

“Our time is almost up, Patrick. Your friends at the bureau by now are no doubt close to figuring out where you and Teresa might be. I admire their persistence.”

Jane could hear Red John stoking the wood in the pot bellied stove, and something metal clanging against its iron interior. “But I want you to have a token of our time together, something special - uniquely yours - to remember me by.”

Red John passed his chair on the left. Out of the corner of his eye, Jane saw an almost upside-down Red John carrying the “parting gift”. Jane began to tug on his bonds more desperately than ever, as Red John held in his hand a three foot poker with a brand at the end in the shape of his trademark: the smiley face of an insane man. It was glowing red from hours in the hot coals. Above it the air swam and moved, dancing in little ghosts-waves of heat.

Red John held it to within an inch of the flesh just below Jane’s left shoulder and Jane could already feel the burn. “Just this one final thing, Patrick, and I’ll let you and your precious Teresa go free. I fear she may be damaged from so many days in the chair.” Red John held the thing over Jane’s face so he could see clearly with what he was about to be branded. “I must warn you, Patrick, this will hurt.” Red John pressed the thing against Jane’s left upper chest making him bucked wildly, screaming behind the gag and closing his eyes against the pain that outstripped anything he had ever felt before, but scream and curse as he might, he couldn’t shake the thing off.

Red John tried to sooth him with words. “Almost done. I have to hold it there long enough to make sure the scar is permanent. It has to burn through the dermal layers to the clavicular and stemocostal pectorals. I looked it all up, and I’m almost positive this will require only one application.” As the thing smoked against his flesh and cooked his tissues, Jane’s head filled with all the terrible things he would do to Red John if only he was not tied down like a beast. But those things went unsaid behind the gag. Jane was screaming and his own saliva began to build in his mouth, making the cloth inside saturated as a corner of it started to slide down his throat, choking him.

Red John ignored that and finished his task, finally removing the branding iron with a satisfied nod of approval. “Excellent.” He tossed it aside and it hit the floor with a series of dull thuds. Red John loosened the gag enough to remove the cloth that was choking him, but returned the rope to its place. “Rest now, Patrick, for a while.”

C—B—I

Cho read and re-read the notes from the dozen interviews they had done since Lisbon’s abduction and Jane’s willing capture. That Red John might be a Carnie was a sound idea but still only a theory and that theory brought them no closer to finding their colleagues than the day before. They needed more than all the names of the people Jane had worked with (a list up in the several hundred’s), since he was a child in a circus, they needed something more specific to go on if they wanted to narrow that list down to a few, or one.

Robertson was the only woman who had seen the man they thought might be Red John, or his accomplice as Red John never seemed to run out of them. “Average height, brown hair maybe, a hat, a jacket, cowboy boots I think...” pretty well summed up her account.

Cho looked up her home phone number. “Mrs. Robertson, this is Agent Cho of the CBI, do you remember our conversation a few days ago? Good. You’ve had a little time to think back to the day you saw the man we’re looking for – remember? Can you think of anything else about him, even if it seems insignificant to you or not important enough to mention – anything at all?”

There was a pause on the line. “I’m sorry, Agent Cho, I mean other than bad breath, I can’t recall anything about that man’s face.”

“Bad breath? He had bad breath? What did it smell like?” Ridiculous and gross but you never knew.

“Well, like sausage.”

“Breakfast sausage, McDonald’s, Jack-in-the-Box...?”

“No, like the Italian kind or Ukrainian maybe. Real spicy, sour stuff. Garlic-y too.”

“But sour? So maybe pickled? Could it have been pickled?”

“Well, yes. My grandmother used to make it like that, in those big jars. We grew up hating it.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Robertson, I appreciate it. I may be calling you again.” Cho hung up and called Rigsby and Van Pelt in from kitchen coffee break time.

“What’s up?” Rigsby had a large coffee double cream, double sugar and Van Pelt was sipping tea from one of the delicate cup and saucer sets Jane often used. Cho was hard pressed tearing his eyes off it for a moment, and then looked directly at her. “I need the three of us to locate every delicatessen in Sacramento that handles pickled sausage, not the little finger type you find at wedding receptions, I mean the big ones, the kind you buy in one quart jars or better. Van Pelt, can you make us three copies of that list?”

She nodded.

“Good. We each take bags with us and we’ll divvy up the stores. Only one type of sausage to a bag. One sausage, one bag, and label them. What type and which store. Got it? When I’m done my list, I’ll bring Mrs. Robertson to the CBI office.”

Cho looked even more serious than usual which was a stretch even for him, and Rigsby thought it best to sit on the sausage sex joke that came to mind. “We’re on it.” He said.

C—B—I

Cloe hovered over him with the syringe between her fingers. “Red John wants you to sleep for a little while.” She sounded strange, as though she were debating something. “I’m beginning to think he loves you more than he loves me. He said we were going to kill you, but he hasn’t.”

Jane, half conscious, body fluids weeping from the fresh burn, was listening to the far away sound of the crazy woman. Sleep would feel nice.

“I think it would be better for you to die sooner rather than later. Wouldn’t he be proud of me if I killed you myself?” Cloe looked at the tiny needle of sleep or death in her hand. “Most of this, two-thirds, will put you into a deep sleep for about two hours. Any more than that and you might not wake up at all.”

As she leaned over her hair tickled him and Jane had to move his face away. She smelled like cheap roses. His wrists were still bound by ropes to the floor ring, but she had room enough to wrap a rubber band around his upper arm, slap at a vein in the crook of his elbow to encourage it to bubble up, stick the needle in clumsily and press down on the plunger to the hilt. Jane felt the stuff pouring into his vein, at first cold and then warming him all over as he began to lose his senses. Cloe stood, happy with her decision, tossing the syringe away.

Almost immediately Red John entered the room and saw the empty syringe on the floor, Ignoring Cloe’s bright smile, he hurried over to Jane (to Jane it seemed as though Red John were flying through the air), and slapped his face in an attempt to rouse him, then lifted one of his eyelids.

Through vision swiftly shrinking down to a pinhole, Jane heard Red John say “What did you d-o-o-o?” And Cloe’s shrill defence of her actions. “You love me – me. Not him. It’s not supposed to be him.” Jane could hear Cloe’s high heels click-clacking on the wood floor as Red John backed her against a wall. Her feet kicked an empty jar and she picked it up, throwing it at Red John in her scorned fury. “Not-him-not-him-not-him!”

The jar shattered into thick shards all over the floor. Red John’s punishment for Cloe was swift and Jane jumped at the sound of a knife slashing into flesh. The sound of it reminded him of a chef’s knife cutting into a well aged cut of beef. One expert fall of the blade and the thing was hacked in two with not a hint of dullness or hesitation.

Cloe slid down the wall and died at Red John’s feet while he calmly watched.

Lisbon saw it too, and gasped at the unabridged lack of hesitation on Red John’s part. Cloe had erred. Sl-i-i-i-ce! She was dead. She watched Red John return to Jane slap his cheek, trying to rouse him. Teresa herself was silently begging Jane to wake up, when Red John decided to resort to more desperate measures. He hurried out of the room and after some minutes, returned with an empty jar, identical to the one Cloe had smashed. It was full of water and Red John aimed it at Jane and let loose with the entire contents, soaking Jane’s face, hair and chest.

The force of it moved the head of his prisoner a little but he did not wake up. Red John left the room again and returned with more water and tossed the whole thing once more at Jane’s face. He did not wake up that time either.

Lisbon watched, silently praying to the God she still believed was out there that Jane would wake up as Red John returned again and again with more water. Finally Jane coughed and moved his head but he was by no means completely out of danger. Red John seemed satisfied however and abandoned the water run. He glanced over disgustedly to where Cloe lay in a large pool of her own blood. “I suppose I’ll have to do this one myself.”

Lisbon watched, horrified, as Red John untied all of Jane’s ropes and lay him stomach-side down and crossways over the heavy padded chair. Not bothering to retie him in any way, Red John, in one motion pulled Jane’s sweat pants down around his knees. Then he looked over at Lisbon, holding her eyes with his own for a few seconds. Lisbon knew he was smiling, or leering, behind the mask at what he was about to do to her friend.

Lisbon averted her eyes. “Please, no.” She whispered not to Red John, but to God.

“He isn’t in the habit of answering prayers you know.” Red John counselled her. “Why, you’d get more results from me if you tried hard enough.” To her horror, Red John pulled out his flaccid penis with one hand and a knife from his pocket with the other. “Watch, Teresa.”

Lisbon sucked in a breath. It was difficult to look, though, so difficult. What a violation a mere set of eyes could bring upon an innocent. What a betrayal of privacy and trust was the act of looking upon an incognizant friend’s humiliation.

In a voice shrill and ugly, “Watch!” Red John yelled and leaned over to place the knife at Jane’s throat. “Or he dies now.”

Lisbon turned her eyes back to the terrible scene of Red John spreading lubricant over his penis, a growing, grotesque red worm emerging from a nest of black and gray hair. Red John positioned himself in between Jane’s buttocks and thrust forward, grunting as he penetrated his semi-conscious victim.

Lisbon wanted to vomit as Red John began to pump, moaning at the pleasure of raping a man he had starved and beaten for days. Lisbon wanted to kill Red John so badly she could feel the trembling at the end of her right index finger as it tightened around an absent trigger. Her Sig Sauer held twelve bullets in its magazine. She would have used them all and then reloaded just to be thorough.

When his pathetic dick had spent itself inside Jane’s body, Red John pulled his pants back up, repositioned Jane in the chair as before, and retying his feet to its thick wooden legs and his hands behind him to the floor ring. Red John took one more look at Lisbon, satisfied that she had watched the entire thing. He zipped up his pants, walked to Cloe’s body kicking broken glass out of the way with his shoe, grabbed hold of one of Cloe’s thin ankles and pulled her from the room as though she were an old carpet that required beating out.

Lisbon heard a door shut somewhere in the next room, the sound of a car’s trunk slamming down and the start of a car engine, and knew she was once again alone with Jane in Red John’s psycho-den.

Lisbon watched Jane in his drugged sleep. His breathing was far too shallow for his health. He had a full measure of chemicals in his blood and they were undoubtedly depressing his respiratory system. Suddenly Lisbon had the urge to all at once apologise to Jane for having witnessed what she had just seen, and bawl her eyes out for him.

“I’m so sorry.” She whispered in the empty room. “I’m so, so sorry.” She had doubted Jane when he insisted Red John was still alive, and then doubted him more when he said Red John was still in California, and argued with him whether or not Red John was still active or if he would show up again.

And then the letter came and instead of taking it seriously, at face value as a message from a murdering psychopath, she used it as an excuse to control Jane himself. Instead of believing Jane, she’d sent him home. Instead of recognising that he was actually worried, maybe even scared, she had left him unprotected just long enough.

Red John wasn’t just Jane’s obsession anymore, he was all of theirs. And Jane was Red John’s obsession and she had not before clearly understood just how lethal such an obsession can be, and how many ways a killer can kill. It was not just about Jane’s body or blood, it was about his spirit and his will. Red John was systematically trying to crush those frailer parts of Jane that he kept hidden from his colleagues, or perhaps wake up another part of him none of them had ever witnessed.

“I am so very sorry, Jane, but we’ll get out of this - I promise.” Her voice fell to the floor and dispersed in the still air of the room, not reaching his ears, not echoing off the stained white walls. But it was a lame vow and she knew it, so whether Jane heard it or not was hardly an issue.

“Wake up, Jane. Please wake up.”

 

C—B—I

 

Cho viewed the bagged sausages he and his team had collected, nine types in all. Mrs. Robertson sat nearby, looking confused.

“We need volunteers.” Cho said and sent Van Pelt to the fourth floor to find some. He and Rigsby rounded up office staff from their floor.

“Rayburn.” Cho said, approaching one likely looking fellow agent.

Rayburn, a younger, dour faced man in a blue shirt looked up from his computer. “Cho.”

“Can you give us a hand with something?”

Rayburn sat back, slowly swivelling in his chair. “You mean Lisbon’s team? The team that’s been investigating the rest of us? That team?”

Unmoved - “That’s the one.”

Rayburn appeared reluctant to get up from his seat. “You know, no one around here is crazy about any of you right now.”

“I’m aware.” Cho said, “But we’ve got two fellow agents whose lives are on the lines and I figured you might want to help. If not, when this is over your right to refuse will be noted in my report to Bertram.”

Rayburn threw Cho a dirty look, tossed down his pencil down and followed Cho into the other offices. There Van Pelt and Rigsby had five other people all huddled more or less in the middle of the room. Nearby on Rigsby’s desk sat nine bagged sausages, and nine bottles of water. Van Pelt explained. “I figure their mouths ought to be rinsed of other stuff.”

Cho nodded in approval, and then stood before their volunteers. “Okay, here’s how it goes. Each of you is going to rinse your mouth with bottled water and then eat one of these sausages. One sausage to one person. Do not share bites with anyone else. Do not drink afterward until we say so. Clear?”

Cho ignored the bemused smiles some of the volunteers gave each other and handed out water bottles. He was also aware of how Jane-like an experiment it was. Their staff mentalist would be proud. “Drink some water, rinse well and spit into that.” He pointed to a plastic bucket. “Then eat the sausage we give you. Eat the whole thing please. We’ll be doing the same.”

To sooth some of the frowns they were seeing, Van Pelt said “I know this seems ridiculous but we’ve got two agents in the hands of a serial killer so this is really important.”

Once the crowd had finished chewing, some with disgust on their faces, Cho brought Mrs. Robertson over. “This woman is the only eye-witness we have to the serial killer Red John. She’s going to need to smell your breath.” Cho decided to forgo explaining anymore. “Mrs. Robertson?” Cho said encouragingly.

Robertson stood before each volunteer and sniffed, first Cho and then Rigsby’s sausage breath. She shook her head to Cho and moved on. Rayburn was next and Robertson sniffed obediently. “No, I don’t think so.” Then two more of the office staff. Van Pelt was next and Robertson leaned in, standing on her toes as Van Pelt was significantly taller than she. “Oh – that’s the one.” She exclaimed. “Horrid.”

Van pelt nodded to Cho. “I can vouch for that.” She found some tissues and spit into them, trying to rid her mouth of the foul stuff.

But Cho was making sure. “Are you certain – are you positive that’s what it smelled like?”

Robertson nodded. “Absolutely. Just like the stuff we used to have to eat as kids. I hated it.”

Van Pelt held up the bag label for Cho and Rigsby to see, and Cho nodded to the helpers, then waving them away. Van Pelt offered them verbal, more tactfully gratitude. “Thank you for your help. Very much appreciated, really.”

Cho took the baggie with the crucial label. “Let’s go.”

C—B—I

Jane awoke to cold. Shivers racked his body and his teeth chattered. For some reason he was wet. Two, three minutes went by before her heard his name. Lisbon was talking to him. “What? What Lis-s-sb?” He asked, but he couldn’t see her in the dark room.

“I said are you okay?”

That was clear. He understood her now, remembering at the same time where he was. “Sure. Let’s come back’re sometime for, y’know, vac’shun.”

Lisbon was about to say more when the car returned. Her heart sank. What now?

Red John entered the room and switched on the light. “Hello Patrick.” He closed the door behind him, turning the dead-bolt. “You’re awake. How nice.”

Jane was in pain, however, and no longer paying attention to anything Red John said or did. Jane stretched out his arms behind them and found them less numb than before, and he could wiggle his fingers again and rotate his wrist a little under the ropes. As he struggled to force movement back into his hands, the fingers of his right hand brushed against something hard. He felt around and found a sharp edge. By stretching his back as long as he could make it, he was able to extend his reach just enough to wrap two, then three fingers around the object. Taking it up, he felt it and realised it was a shard of glass about five inches in length, wide at one end but narrowing to a dangerous spike at the other.

Jane tightened his grip on it and tried its lethal edge against the rope of his other hand and to his satisfaction it bit into the rope a respectable way. With renewed purpose, Jane worked on the ropes that had held him in the chair for four days. It was slow work but progress was made with each pass of the shard over the nylon weave. And all the time Red John was in the background talking, always talking, trying to impress, loving the sound of his hinge-like voice and delighting in his own gangrenous presence.

All the while Jane hacked and sawed at the confining ropes. Occasionally he misjudged and cut his own skin but he hardly felt it. He was almost free!

Red John abandoned whatever it was he was doing and slowly approached Jane with his knife in hand. “I think it is time to decorate your other shoulder now, Patrick. I promise it’ll look lovely once it’s done.”

Just a few more threads, and then, suddenly, his hands were free. Red John did not notice the chewed up ropes drop the two inches to the floor behind him because the padded chair back hid them from his view. Jane gathered the shard in his right hand, the one that was uncut. He gripped it tightly; with his life and hers hanging on what he did next. The shard’s wide end was sure to cut into the palm of his hand but it would be a worthy blood-letting.

Red John brandished his curved blade over Jane’s naked shoulder, crooning on about how beautiful he would make the peel. The design would be tasteful but artsy. “You’ll thank me later, Patrick, from your deepest heart of hearts.”

When Red John leaned over to make the first cut, he as close as he would ever be and Jane threw his fist gripping the shard as hard as he could, thrusting in and up, even more surprised than Red John that the shard lunged in as deep as it did. Right into the soft underbelly it went, buried to the end. The only thing stopping it from disappearing completely was Jane’s fist, and that was only a minor disappointment. Jane’s hand was cut now, too, but had fared better than Red John’s abdomen, which began to spew exhilarating amounts of blood that gushed over Jane’s fist and travel down his arm.

Jane did not even notice. He was staring Red john right in the eyes, the eyes behind the mask that were now not full of triumph and glee but something akin to wonder. Red John’s prisoner had just put the whammy over on him and Red John was stunned into silence.

An eternity passed between them, Jane with his weapon buried into the fat of Red John’s stomach, and Red John staring back, stupefied, at Jane. Finally Red John got over his shock enough to stagger back from Jane and pull the shard out with bloodied hands, looking down at it like it was an outlandish thing. Unknowable, rude and unwelcomed turn in the day.

Jane was awake now, and staring at Red John, not taking his eyes off of him for a single second. “I got you.” He whispered and Red John looked up from his inspection of the foreign object in his hand that had violated his midsection to stare at Jane, unblinking. As quiet and still as the dead.

“I got you.” Jane repeated. If he died now at Red John’s hands it did not matter to a single cell of his life since Red John had himself just been struck a lethal blow and would bleed out down his own legs. “I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming did you?” Jane looked down at his own naked, bruised body, the deep burn on his chest that he would carry with him the rest of his life and none of it concerned him. The burn was just a burn, the cold air on his back was simply the cold and his pain through-out his body was the clanging bell that told him he had come this far and won. Red John was going to die.

It was Jane’s turn to talk and he did while Red John pulled the shard from his gut with a sickening sploop! and let it drop to the floor. “I finally cut you, you murdering son-of-a-crazy-bitch. You’re going to die, Red John, and I am going to sit here and watch the show and laugh at you. I got you, you goddamn, malformed, subhuman psychotic.”

Red John turned to look at the door at the other end of the room but before he walked away from Jane he said in a strained voice thick with pain. “I w-wanted to wake you up, Patrick, a-and finally you are awake.”

To Jane’s horror, Red John’s voice was still too strong, far too strong for a man who was moments from death. “What are you talking about, freak?” But the insult fell flat. Jane was so tired, so appallingly tired that to speak was a chore he was close to abandoning.

Red John chuckled, and then took a shuddering breath. “Too complacent you’ve been, yes, far too complacent this last year. But now reawakened unto me. Congratulations, Patrick.” Red John, strength not so shattered as a moment before, turned and recited in practised form:

“I was angry with my friend,  
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.  
I was angry with my foe,  
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,  
Night and morning with my tears;  
And I sunned it with smiles,  
And with soft deceitful wiles.  
And it grew both day and night,  
Till it bore an apple bright.”

Red John stared at Jane with monster eyes through the twin dead holes of the monster mask. “You understand, now, Patrick, don’t you?”

In the poem was his meaning and the meaning was plain. Jane, despite himself, answered his torturer honestly. “I was losing interest in the...fight; getting t-too comfortable.” Jane peered inside himself and saw the truth of it, and it was not an easy thing to admit, not to the Monster. “I was tired of it all.” Yes, God yes, he had been so tired, so scooped-out hollow of will and want. Looking hard ahead, starting to shed the grasping ghosts of his family and the blooded spectre of Red John himself.

Red John had spoken of an apple grown from hate for an enemy that in time would poison the foe, and it sparked something inside him that Jane had no idea he had lost – the will to act.

Until this moment. “I was losing my...hatred for you.” So much power had existed in his everlasting hatred he had become intoxicated with it, and had drunk deeply of that toxin for years and years. He had been drowning in his hate and at some unremembered time and day suddenly the need for it had gone out of him, that desire to destroy had ceased its perpetual churning of his insides. Jane had begun to crave the fresh air of the carefree world above where there is no hunt.

Reformation was due.

Red John nodded silently. Then he walked very gingerly toward the door, opened it and disappeared from his sight.

C—B—I

Cho did the questioning of the manager of the Pig-Let, a delicatessen that sold meat and other foods in preserves of every description.

“Yes, we have garlic pickled sausage. I have a few jars left.” He kept pushing his glasses up his nose as it was too hot inside the store and he was sweating. “It’s not our most popular but tasty, very tasty.”

“Do you get any regulars who buy it?”

“Yes, lately, but only orders over the phone. She’s had us deliver it to an address here in Sacramento the last few days.”

“We’ll need that address.”

The fellow had already seen the badges and fingered through his receipts in a drawer. “Officer, here’s one of the orders. Uh, two days ago. The address is just east of Old Sac’, near Crocker Park.”

Cho thanked the man and called out the local uniforms to meet his team at the same address. It was the only real lead they had scrounged so far and Cho prayed it panned out.

By the time they had arrived, two local officers were waiting on the sidewalk outside a two story house with peeling yellow paint. It did not look lived-in. Drawing their weapons, Rigsby kicked in the front door and they stormed in, identifying themselves first and then calling out Lisbon’s and Jane’s names. The front door opened into an old-fashioned narrow hallway, taking them to the living room.

Neither Lisbon nor Jane was present. But a woman’s body was. Cho directed the offices to clear the top floor. The house had no basement.

Cho stepped near to examine the woman. It was clear she had been dead a while since her skin was chalk-white and her dress was stained with blood. There was a wide gash on her throat Red-John style. “Must be another “Louise”.” Rigsby said.

Cho nodded, looking at the blood stains on her dress. “Lots of blood on her clothes but almost none on the floor. I don’t think she was killed here.”

Van Pelt noticed the nearby hallway wall. On it hung a few old pictures. “Hey guys. If she was killed elsewhere, why this?” She pointed to a blood spray pattern up the wall from the floor and over the pictures.

Rigsby looked closely. “These pictures are old – turn of the century.” One picture had received the worst of the red splatter. Rigsby spotted something on the wall itself that was not blood spray, next to the dirty frame. The majority of whatever Rigsby had spotted was hidden by the frame itself. Putting away his weapon he took a small handkerchief from his pocket and used it to slide the frame sideways. Beneath was revealed a smiley face looking back at them.

Cho stepped forward. “What is that picture of?”

Rigsby new exactly what he was thinking. “A farmhouse.”

Cho holstered his gun. “One somewhere outside Sacramento I’ll bet.”

“I’ll take that bet.” Van Pelt commented. “Where do you think the jars were left?” Not that it was important but details were crucial to every investigation and in turn every written report. Such things had to be thorough for their methods to hold water should in the future a court date arrive to explain themselves before a jury and a criminal defence team.

Rigsby said. “When we were kids, they still delivered milk door to door and Mom had a milk cubby where they delivery guys used to leave it. Check the back door.”

Van Pelt found the “chute” in question, lifted the little safety hook and opened the small door. Inside sat a jar of garlic pickled sausage.

“It’s a fair bet Red John won’t be picking up his delivery now.” Cho called the uniforms to tend to the scene, and then he grabbed the old photo from the wall. “We need to figure out where this farmhouse is.”

Van Pelt, the keeper of her mother’s old family photos, said. “Try the back.” While Cho was removing the photo from the frame, she asked Rigsby. “Why is Red John helping us find them?”

It was rhetorical but Rigsby shook his head and answered anyway. “Maybe Jane was right. Maybe Red John isn’t out to kill him. Not yet anyway.”

“Let’s hope Jane’s right.” She said quietly, watching as Cho slipped the photo from its dusty frame.

He turned it over. There was writing in faded ink. He read: “”Grt. Auntie Rae’s farm house. Yolo County”.”

“That’s probably in the San Joaquin Valley.” Van Pelt said.

On the drive to Yolo County, Cho’s phone got a text. Van Pelt opened it up. Her heart raced a bit and she said. “Hey, Cho, this text has to be from Red John.” She read it: “”Come pick up your sweet, sweet Jane”.” She showed it to Rigsby seated in the back. “There’s map coordinates.”

“Nothing about Lisbon?” Cho asked.

“No.” Van Pelt knew that was worrisome.

“Enter it into the GPS.” Cho stepped on the gas.

 

C—B—I

Jane, his hands free, managed to untie the ropes from his ankles, but his feet were so swollen and his legs so cramped from disuse that instead of standing up out of the chair that had been his prison, he fell out of it to the floor. Crawling to Lisbon took another minute or more but once there he worked on freeing her hands as well. Lisbon was almost faint with relief that he could move at all.

“Hey,” She said, still heavy with worry for his condition, “Are you all right? Jane, are you okay?”

Jane nodded but his heart wasn’t in it. Once her hands were free, he left her to untie her own feet and crawled away.

For a moment Lisbon wondered where he was going but then saw him stop in front of the small pile of burnt letters and photos. Jane sifted through them with his un-bloodied left fingers, searching for any scraps that had survived. Lisbon could see even from where she was sitting that there were none. She stumbled on rubbery legs over to him and sat down beside him, taking his hands in hers. She didn’t care about the blood or how he smelled. Likely they both smelled bad after so many unwashed days sitting in their soiled clothing.

“Hey, come on, Jane, there’s nothing there.” She sat down beside him and pulled his hand back. It was covered in pulp ash.

Jane, seeing it was senseless, let her and sat on his bum, stretching out pinched nerves and cramped muscles. Suddenly his mind woke up a little more to her presence beside him. “Are you all right?” He asked.

“Yes.’ She said, putting her arm around his bare shoulders, being careful not to touch anywhere near the dreadful burn, she linked the fingers of her left hand through his, hanging on to him physically. He was shivering. Lisbon looked around the room and saw no blankets or other clothing. “I’m going to explore the rest of the house, okay? See if there’s a phone and water - or a blanket. Are you fine here on your own for a minute?”

He nodded but his left hand never let go of hers until she gently made him. “Don’t move, Jane. That’s an order.”

He nodded, still groggy, still in tremendous amount of pain from the burn and other atrocities Red John had inflicted, but coherent enough to understand her. He gave her a feeble salute with his right hand then winced at his protesting bicep.

Lisbon was glad to see the touch of Jane-brand humour. It was reassuring.

The house had one adjacent room that had, at one time, served as a kitchen. Nothing worked and no electricity was hooked up either, judging by the single light bulb dangling from the ceiling that was cracked and gray with age. Unfortunately neither was there a phone, and no blanket or water could she find in any of the rotting wood cupboards. Lisbon looked outside the one cracked window that was not boarded up. A few other old houses sat nearby, hundreds of yards across unmoved lawns and gravel rock lanes. Whether anyone was home in them, or if they were even occupied wasn’t clear. Lisbon considered knocking on some doors to find out but she was worried about having to leave Jane alone while she sought help. She feared that upon her return he might be unconscious or not breathing at all.

Leaving him at this point simply wasn’t acceptable. She would have to find some other way.

C—B—I

 

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.  
Chuck Palahniuk

 

C—B—I

Lisbon was hoisted into a gurney and Jane onto one beside her. Lisbon's team had discovered the farmhouse and summoned help and Jane was getting the help he needed. From the roll-away, Lisbon waved for Cho. Cho, sterile gloves on his hands, was holding one of the unbroken jars, debating whether finger prints might be found on it. He was also flashing worried eyes to Jane's gurney as it was loaded into one of two waiting ambulances.

He came over and Lisbon dropped her voice. "I need you to do something for me." She whispered.

"Why are you whispering?"

Lisbon hated to do it but it could be crucial not only to the investigation but to Jane's health. "You need to advise the attending to do a swab on Jane."

Cho heard her but wasn't sure he had heard right. "What kind of swab?"

Poor Cho. Not an easy thing to be told that the man you loved had been so ill-treated. "A rape kit, Cho, they need to do a rape kit on Jane." She grabbed his arm when it appeared he was going to leave her and rush over to Jane. "Wait! Cho, he doesn't know about it. He has no idea it happened, he was unconscious."

Cho put his hands on his hips and was silent for several seconds, breathing hard. A typical Cho stance that Lisbon recognised as profound disapproval and mounting fury.

"Cho. Jane's okay, really, but maybe he doesn't need to know everything just now? He's in enough pain."

Cho walked in a tiny circle, once, twice, and then flung the jar against the nearest wall, smashing it to bits. "What else?" He asked. "If you hold out on me or lie, I'll know."

Yes, he would. Working with Jane for four years brought its benefits. Still, Lisbon shaved off some truth to make it easier to hear. "It was why Red John didn't let him eat." 'Not letting Jane eat' sounded better than 'Jane was starved so when Red John raped him, there would be no little surprises to interfere with his pleasure'.  
"And Jane was beaten." Lisbon added, though Cho had seen the evidence for himself when he and the team had arrived. "It was Red John, Cho. He was cruel. That's why the burn." Done for other reasons no doubt, like Red John branding his property. So Patrick would see it every time he stepped from the shower and saw his own body in the mirror, or when he shaved each morning. So Red John would never leave Jane's thoughts for a moment.

Cho's breathing slowed but his hands were still fisted with rage. Only there was no throat to wrap them around. "I'll tell them." Cho said and walked away, now avoiding the ambulance. The doors were closing anyway and there was no room for him. He wanted to murder Red John, slice him up and throw him to the dogs in the street. Someday he might be able to fulfill that wish. No wonder! No wonder Jane hated him so much and had vowed to kill him, not wishing to spare even his own life to accomplish it. No fucking

wonder.

C—B—I

 

Cho looked up and saw a man standing in the office doorway, looking around uncertainly.

"Can I help you?" Cho asked.

The fellow, in his mid-fifties and dressed in jeans and an oversized tee-shirt, pointed one thumb over his shoulder. "The guy at the desk downstairs told me to come up here and talk to somebody."

Cho stood up and walked over to him. "Oh?"

"Yeah." The fellow put his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I think I might have delivered that bomb."

Cho immediately interested but still a little puzzled, asked "What bomb?"

"You know - the one that blew up that cab."

Cho pointed to a chair. "Have a seat." He said and went to find Rigsby.

Rigsby was in the kitchen, making coffee. Cho missed seeing the kettle boiling and Jane pouring tea, but Jane was on eight weeks compulsory leave, four of those spent recovering in the hospital. The skin grafts were doing well but Jane's plastic surgeon had warned that the scar would still be visible, still clear as to what it was.  
Once his hospital stay was over, Jane would then be under the ongoing treatment of the CBI psychologist for an indeterminate time until it was decided he was fit to return to field work. Lisbon was finishing short term leave at her mother's house. She would be back on Friday.

Cho grabbed the individual coffee grounds bag from Rigsby's hand.

Rigsby started. "What gives?"

Cho put it back in the cupboard. "Making coffee or tea is a type of art form and you're a paint-by-numbers man."

Rigsby resented it. "Did Jane tell you that?"

"No, it's just become evident. Leave the coffee; we've got an interview to do."

Cho and Rigsby secluded the man in Interrogation Room Two, a more casual place to talk as this man was not a suspect in any crime, yet.

"So, Mister Hodgeson, a man paid you to toss a bag of clothes and who knows what else into a taxi?" Rigsby asked.

"Yeah."

"So you're a laundry delivery service for a serial killer." Cho said. "That's a pretty specialized line of work."

The fellow, his greasy hair reflecting the overhead lights, returned the sarcasm. "You're a funny guy." He said in a thick Jersey accent.

"But is that usual for your business? Delivering laundry to cabbies?"

Hodgeson leaned forward. "I once delivered a rich lady's three Chihuahua's to a taxidermist." He paused for effect. "They were still alive. "We Deliver It All" – that's out motto, okay? We're a delivery company. We deliver anything to anywhere, so taking some whack-job's laundry to a taxi cab? Dull day. And the last time I checked, delivering laundry to a cab was not illegal."

"No, it isn't. But you knew he was a "whack-job"?" Rigsby asked.

The guy looked at them like these were the slowest cops he had ever met, and he had met a few. "No. Now I figure he's a whack-job 'cause the cab I delivered the stuff to blew up. I'm doing my civic duty. I'm telling you guys what I did, and what I think I might have done unintentionally. I thought it was a little weird that the taxi I delivered to exploded."

Cho sat back from his note book. "The bomb had been planted ahead of time somehow, or left in the cab after our agent had exited it. It was not in the laundry bag, and it would have been fairly bulky. You would have noticed."

The fellow nodded in the way of the guiltless. "Well, thank you for finally letting me in on it. That eases my mind."

Rigsby asked. "What did he look like, the guy who hired you?"

"Never seen 'em before."

"Can you describe him?" Cho asked.

"Sure. Dark hat, dark glasses, average height, medium weight and he was a white guy."

"That's it?" Cho asked, though he had not really expected anything more.

"I'm telling ya' that the guy was ordinary."

"What about his breath?"

"His breath? Do I look like I'm into swapping spit? I am glad to report that I didn't get close enough to 'im to smell anything."

Cho closed his notebook. "Thank you for coming down, we appreciate it. Just in case we have other questions, don't leave town please."

""Don't leave town"? Are you actually saying that?"

"I'm a cop.' Cho reminded him. "I'm supposed to say that."

 

Cho returned to his desk to finish up his daily report and add the notes of the Hodgeson interview to the report of their latest, and deadliest, Red John encounter.

Rigsby walked up to his desk carrying two take-out cups. He places one on Cho's desk. "Here. I went out for it."

Cho sniffed it. It smelled gourmet. He took a sip. It was delicious. "Thanks."

Rigsby shrugged. "Figured maybe you were used to Jane's beverage-making skills now." It was a kind attempt to make Cho feel better about Jane's absence.

Cho took a long swallow. It was only a week since the rescue of Lisbon and Jane, and he had been thinking a great deal about the case and the circumstances surrounding it. "Hey, Rigsby, Van Pelt, you both free?"

Both nodded. Van Pelt looked at the clock. "It's ten minutes from quitting time. I've been bored since lunch."

Cho stood and put on his suit jacket. "Let's take a drive."

 

Lisbon answered the door to find her three agents standing on the porch. "Uh, hi." She said. It was a wholly unexpected visit. "What brings you here?" Instantly fearful. "Is  
Jane all right? Did something happen?"

Cho shook his head. "No, but I wanted to speak to you about something. Mind if we come in?"

Lisbon stepped back. "No, um, my mother's at the store. She won't be back for an hour. Come in."

Lisbon was a woman to cut to the chase. There was no offer of coffee or snacks. She simply sat down opposite her team, who had spread themselves among the sofa and chairs. "What's up?"

Cho explained his theory about Red John without a pause, speaking for several minutes.

Lisbon looked impressed and concerned. "Have you told this to Jane?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think that's a good idea, at least not right now."

"I've been reading back reports. What about your other theory – the staff investigations?"

"It didn't pan out simple because we have so many suspects, we may as well have none - it doesn't make much difference, but if we focus on these, the people only in Jane's past – those we can find - the list is reduced to less than four hundred people to look at, which is better than what we've been able to do up until now; looking everywhere. And we can check into this without Jane's knowledge, he'd be protected."

"What about the evidence from the farm house?"

Cho didn't think it amounted to much. "Broken jars, a man who likes pickled sausage, a dead woman with no priors, and a contaminated sample of Red john's blood – type O."  
Hardly anything more than what they had gathered over the previous eight years. "What about the house itself, and the one in town?"  
Rigsby fielded that question. "It's complicated but State records show it originally it belonged to a woman named Maria-Ann Gerdhart who inherited it from her father, a settler from the Netherlands. She lived there for years and years and she had a brother, Henk Wendles, who owned the house in town. Neither of these people was legally married but Maria had a common-law husband named George Gerhard and an adopted son they named Walfred Dane Gerdhart who disappeared when he was fifteen. He was not a legal adoption and guess where he worked?"

Lisbon hoped her mother would not come home early. "I'm all ears."

"At the Sac' State Fair, every summer for five years. Twenty years ago the records for vendors weren't well kept but we managed to find out that he ran a gaming booth."  
Lisbon said it, though they all knew. "Didn't Jane and his father spend some years with the Sac' Fair?"

Cho nodded. "For four summers the name Samuel Patrick Jane is on the roster as a psychic and magician. Him and his only son – Patrick, our Jane."

"So you're thinking this Walfred might be Red John? That he recognised Jane when he did his TV slot the day his family was murdered?" Lisbon already knew the answers but it felt good to give voice a real, on paper, well considered, not-so-wispy theory. There was a first time for every good lead in a case and this could be it.

"Yes." Cho felt relieved to have finally unburdened his idea to the woman who would make the next decision regarding it though, if he knew his Lisbon, he had a pretty good idea what that decision might be.

Lisbon sat back, proud of her team and terrified of the implications of Cho's discovery. "It's still only a theory. This house, Walfred, his mother, it might just be a weird coincidence. Red John might have picked the houses randomly. Both have been abandoned for years." But she didn't believe it for a moment. "And it doesn't explain why this kid would hate Jane so much. Do we have any idea where this Walfred might be?"

Cho shook his head. "He dropped off the grid and hasn't been seen since his fifteenth birthday, when we assume his father left his mother. We assume that because there are no known records of the dad after that until he died in an Illinois hospital from alcohol induced poisoning. He was seventy-three."

Lisbon recalled something Jane had said to her once. That he never knew his mother. It was very unusual not to have met your own mother. "What about Jane's mother?"

Cho figured Lisbon would pick up on where he was going. "His dad is all we know of. Whoever she was, she gave birth to him but never hung around to raise him."

Van Pelt suddenly realised what Cho was saying. "You think this Gerdhart woman might be Jane's missing mother?" She looked over at Lisbon to see if she wasn't completely off track. "And Jane and Red John could be...half brothers?"

When spoken like that, it sounded like a dime novel, but Cho was ready to undertake whatever footwork was required to prove or disprove it, when the time was right. "Adopted mother to Walfred, birth-mother to Jane, but she decided to stay with her common-law husband and her adopted son, abandoning Jane to the care of his biological father." God bless the family union. He wondered if Jane knew he was an illegitimate birth. At this juncture would he even care?

Rigsby let out the air he had been holding in. "Whew. Your mother having an affair with another man, Jane's father, and then going back to her old family only to watch her husband slowly kill himself with booze. Fun."

"For now we keep this to ourselves. Jane can't know about it, any of it." Lisbon had made the decision, and Cho breathed a sigh of relief.

Van Pelt wasn't so sure that was the best idea. "You mean until he finds out and goes ballistic. Remember who Jane is – he can read people and I for one find it hard to lie to people, least of all him."

"We have to. It's for his safety." Lisbon asserted.

Van Pelt crossed her arms. "Doesn't Jane have a right to know about this? It's his life, his decision."

Time to point out what was regularly turning Lisbon's guts to ice. "If we tell Jane about his, we all know exactly what he'll do – he'll vanish and try to hunt Red John down on his own." And the worst thought of all. "We'll lose him, maybe forever. He could go out there and disappear – or die - and we might never ever hear about it."  
Rigsby was square in the middle on the whole idea. "I don't like the idea of lying to him, for now, but someday we'll have to tell him. Then what?"

"We will tell him, when he's ready, and at a time when we can help him." Cho said. "After what he just went through, does anyone think he really stands a chance on his own?"  
Van Pelt was wavering but still hated the entire idea. "So until then we just keep lying?"

Lisbon put an end to all doubts. "Yes. And in the meantime we take care of him." She looked at them each in turn. "All agreed?"

All hands but Van Pelt's were raised. Van Pelt was still reluctant, but she finally put her hand up too.

Cho relaxed, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders. It had been decided and fate was set in motion. For now Jane was theirs to keep, and for the time being Red John could go take a flying fuck to Mars.

Lisbon said her final word. "The Ayes have it."

 

C—B—I

 

Several weeks later:

 

Bertram popped is head into her office, opening the door without knocking. "Just wanted to check on you." He said to Lisbon. "Welcome back."

"Thank you, sir. Good to be back."

"How's Jane?"

"He'll be in this morning. He was discharged from "observation", though his psychologist called me and gave me stern advice to keep an eye on him."

Bertram nodded wryly. "Nothing new there."

Lisbon smiled a bit. No, but with this go-around her watchful eye would be keener. "No. Hey, we're having a little get-together for him. Tea, coffee and cake; in the kitchen if you want to come."

Bertram shook his head. Between director and his agents, some decorum had to be maintained. "I think I'll pass. Not much for parties."

Lisbon smiled again. "Okay."

Bertram closed the door just as Lisbon saw Jane enter the outer office and make a bee-line to hers. She waved for the team to do their thing, which was go to the kitchen and get things ready.

Jane knocked and she waved him in. "Hey." She was pleased to see him, determined that any awkwardness be avoided at all costs. "You're not late, I'm impressed."

Jane sat down in her visitor's chair, crossing his legs. "First day back, gotta impress my task-master boss."

"Hah." Lisbon sat as well, looking at him, sizing up what should and should not be said. "You look good."

"Thank you." He said, nodding, "So do you."

Lisbon got the impression he was just playing along for now with the formality of casual conversation. Jane had come to say something. "How does it feel to be back?"

With pinched lips, Jane asked. "Can we drop the friendly banter for a second? We can go back to it in a minute if you want. I just wanted to say something."

Lisbon figured as much. "Sorry. Sure."

Jane looked at her stapler, and then at the stack of unread files that had piled up on her desk in her absence, and then at her. "I just wanted to apologise to you, Lisbon."

She hadn't expected that. "For what?"

"For..." Jane stopped and Lisbon could see he was struggling to finish his thought. And then she could see the switch behind his eyes. Click! One tack abandoned, another  
taken up. "For being late so often in the past, it's not fair to you and I know it stresses your OCD perfectionism."

Lisbon let it go. If Jane did not want to talk about it, neither did she. "Apology accepted." She stood and tapped his shoulder, the uninjured one. "Now come on, we have a surprise for you."

Jane followed her into the kitchen and found the rest of the team there. They clapped when he entered and there were words of welcome all around. On a table sat coffee, a full tea service complete with honey, sugar, cookies, scones, and beside that a cake in a white box. The lid was open.

Jane looked inside. "A chocolate cake shaped like a couch? That's so cute."

Cho poured him tea, sitting nearby with his own coffee, counting the minutes until quitting time.

C—B—I

 

Cho answered the door, knowing it was Jane before he opened it. Jane entered without saying a word, shedding his jacket to the floor and collapsing against the wall. "I thought it would never end."

"Thought what would never end?"

Jane leaned back until his shoulders rested against the wall, as though needing its assistance to keep standing. "The slaps on the back, the happy, pasted smiles."

Cho understood. Everyone was happy that he was happy and okay and physically well and back to work. Everything was great and A-okay and they had spent hours assuring him of that. Such bolstering of spirit can be exhausting. "They're just trying to help."

Jane nodded, fingers playing with his vest. "I know, I know." Jane looked up at Cho with eyes leaking pain and he began to speak. "She,..." He began and stopped. Suddenly tears came out of nowhere, appeared in an instant, like a magic trick, thick and flowing freely, but without any other accompanying sound. Cho let Jane stand there and weep in his hallway. He seemed to need to do so, and the water poured. Cho was afraid his eyes might get washed from their sockets. This crying jag did not end after just a single moment. Not this time, this time it did not let up for a full five minutes while his shoulders trembled, his voice remained mute with his head down, all the while his eyes staring at the carpet between rivers of grief.

Cho wondered if Jane thought there was still no one he could trust in a complete way, not even with words. "Jane..." Softly spoken but with just a hint of encouragement, urging Jane to speak his mind with him, even if it would be ever and only with him alone.

The tears ended and the wet on his cheeks evaporated like rain on a warm sidewalk. It was there, and then it was gone.

"She hated the life." Jane said and stole a look at Cho's eyes to see if walking through this emotional field of mines would be too hazardous. Cho looked back steadily, one hand moving to touch Jane's hair at the temple, a connection of trust and longing. Cho's fingers said: Cry, scream, whatever. I'm not going anywhere.

"She hated it, Angela, my wife; the life of the carnie. So did I – I grew up hating it all; the lying, the con', the moving all the time. I was even better than him – my father – at it, that's why he tried to stop us and after I left, he never spoke to me again. That's why I loved Angela, we felt the same and that's why we ran away together, she was twenty, I was nineteen, and we got married, had Charlotte – to get away from it, start over. But leaving that life is so...hard to do. Where do you go? What do you do if that's all you've ever known? It's hard for anyone to start over and the world's a scary place when you're that young plus -" Jane shook his head, the memories flooding back in a great wave of fears that the young always carry until the world takes notice and shows them the way. "Plus...but I couldn't make enough money; I had no skills except playing people – playing The Con' - but Angela hated the con', she hated it. We had...wow...such a huge fight about it, but I agreed to never bring it home. Never in the house, never in the house, suh-sometimes on the deck but never in the house and so-and so s-she didn't leave me, she didn't leave. After that we were good, we were okay, things w-were okay..."

Jane slowly let out a huge lung full of air as though he had not taken one since he began talking, or because it was all the air he would use ever again in a vocal memory of his dead wife and child. Cho had an inkling these were words Jane had said to no one, to not a single person, not ever. That moment in Cho's hallway where the precious, sad and terrible tale was let free once and for all time anointed Cho as the central person in Jane's life, the only one since that terrible event.

The work of the confession seemed to take the strength from Jane and he sagged against the wall, but the huge weight of his grief had also been expelled in the words. All the memories and the sickly burden of pain he had carried for eight years had left his mouth, been lifted above them, mixed into the cool air of the hallway and rendered inert.

Jane lifted his eyes from where they had been studying his hands and looked at Cho. "Everything was okay until..."

Cho nodded. Until Red John took away his only joy, his only joy thus far in a life that had experienced little – his family. Cho had nothing to say back but - "I know you miss them."

Jane nodded and his eyes returned to his hands, fingers picking at each other. "Yes, I...y-yes."

Time to replace the heartache. Cho found Jane's lips and kissed him, clutching his hair and making him go on kissing him, then deepening the kiss when Jane did not turn his head or pull away, and exploring the flesh over his rib cage when Jane responded. Jane's nervous fingers asked Cho's permission first, and then caressed him back when it was given.

That shy uncertainty in Jane, that elegant loving way he had when he wanted something but did not know how to ask, was one of the things Cho loved most about him. That and Jane's passionate loyalty to those he cared about. It was why Jane had remained single for nine lonely years - because he could not forget them. Her ring he had carried on his finger as he had carried her in his heart and that abiding devotion in the man's core is what made Cho take notice of Jane from the start. Jane was a man of classic feelings and authentic honour. He was a gentleman.

But suddenly the moment was over and Jane stopped returning the affections, pulled his lips away and gathered Cho's hands in his own, staring at their fingers, entwined like lovers. "I...can't." He shook his head a little, a regretful, unhappy gesture.

Cho felt the words drop on his heart like bricks but he said nothing and betrayed nothing on his face. Not yet.

Jane looked off to the lamp in the corner, the soft light of its pastel-red shade bringing him back to some sense of where his life really was and to which direction it was headed. He rubbed one had across his forehead. "If Red John finds out...about this, he'll hurt you."

It was useless to remind him but all he could do was try. "Jane, I can take care of myself."

Jane played with Cho's fingers, wanting them, wanting Cho but knowing Red John would never allow him the peace required to pursue a life separate from the hunt. "I know." He believed it fully. "I know, you can, but...I'm not a cop or an agent, I don't - I can't just dismiss the risk or compartmentalise the danger or whatever it is you cops do to cope - to live with it. If another person I care about gets hurt because of him, by definition that means it will be because of me also and I won't come back from it next time. Not...not again."

Cho wished they had caught Red John this time and blown a gaping hole in his center so Jane could have his life back, and so Cho could have him.

"Jane." He would say it. Fuck Red John. If he could not have Jane, then he would damn well make sure Jane knows how he feels anyway, something to store away and refer to when times got bad for him again, when Jane was at his worst, on the bottom and desperately trying to look up to daylight. "I love you."

Jane nodded, suspecting as much. "I wish...I wish I could...but, I think Red John probably has things hidden in your apartment too."

Cho felt his stomach drop. Not the response he had been waiting for. "Why makes you think that?"

"Because of what he whispered to me, about me getting too close to certain people."

Had Red John watched their little love-making show on the couch? Cho would make the appropriate call in the morning to the Tech's. "I'll have it searched just to be sure." Then just to make doubly sure – "Did you hear what I said before?"

Jane nodded. "Yes." Looking at Cho, his hands, the floor.

Cho entertained only one last uncertainty. "Do you believe it?"

Jane nodded again. "Yes." He pushed off from the wall. "But Red John woke me up. I needed waking up."

Cho thought he understood but he heartedly disagreed. "You deserve a life, too, just like everyone else." Preferably one with me.

Perhaps it was too much for Jane to admit, or maybe just too much to speak of openly. Cho understood. Red John might be watching or listening. Even now at this private moment, Jane was a prisoner. "Where are you going to stay?" Cho hated to think of Jane going back to the office couch or the tiny room up near the CBI boiler room – or to the big, empty house of bloody, harsh memories.

"Hotel for now." Jane said. He gathered his jacket and added "I put the big house on the market." Knowing it would please Cho.

A healthy move, Cho thought, and was glad Jane had told him. "You know my door is always open?"

"Yes."

"And you know that once Red John is dead, I'm paying you a visit and never leaving?"

Jane stared at his friend with gratitude. That Cho was willing to wait for him was deeply moving. Jane smiled. There was no restriction in smiling or thinking about the day when the killer would be dead. Even Red John could not argue with those realities at least. Jane nodded, accepting Cho's declaration for truth but not yet existing at a place where he could return it, and Cho was too upstanding a man to lie to about something like that. "I know."

Jane was about to leave when Cho called him back. "Don't be late tomorrow."

Jane shrugged one shoulder to indicate that he'd think it over, flashing Cho a knowing smile.

To Cho it was a good sign that though many things changed, the best of things stayed the same. And occasionally new things came into being. Like loving someone. "Goodnight, Patrick."

"'Nite Cho."

 

C—B—I

END (there may be a sequel. In the meantime watch for my next Mentalist case-fic: Strawberry - Golden Hair Surprise.)

I think this song epitomizes Jane's heartache and struggle against Red John:

 

Leave your lights on. By Everlast/Santana

 

"Hey now, all you sinners  
Put your lights on,  
put your lights on  
Hey now all you lovers  
Put you lights on,  
put your lights on

Hey now, all you killers  
Put you lights on,  
put you lights on

Hey now, all you children  
Leave your lights on,  
you better leave you lights on

'Cause there's a monster,  
living under my bed,  
whispering in my ear  
And there's an angel,  
with a hand on my head  
She say I got nothing to fear

There's a darkness,  
living deep in my soul  
Its still got a purpose to serve  
So let your lights shine,  
deep into my home

God don't let me lose my nerve,  
don't let me lose my nerve"

 

Thanks for reading.


End file.
